HATARI! is something a little different for John Wayne fans expecting a typical cowboy-filled western adventure. This one's set in east Africa where Wayne and his team of men go around hunting and capturing wild animals to sell to zoos around the world. Their business is complicated by the arrival of a French girl who stirs up feelings amongst the group. It's a film that's grossly overlong but has some great and realistic action scenes in it, scenes in which the actors really did perform the dangerous captures you see them attempting. The May to December romance stuff is cringe-worthy, but the animals are tame and lovable, particularly those baby elephants at the climax.

John Wayne plays his usual rollicking tough-but-big-hearted role to the nth degree is this rather over-long but engaging film.I have no idea how animals are obtained for a zoo but I can believe that the activities presented here are a reasonable representation of how it may have been done. If so, then wow. I'm glad someone has the nerve to do it, but I think I'll stay inside the air-conditioned safari bus - or maybe at home.The animal chase and catch scenes are extraordinary. The rhinos look a little undersized (perhaps juveniles) but they are most definitely real - and real mad. No CGI here, this is the true deal. Supposedly "hatari" is the Swahili word for danger and if so these guys are in hatari up to their necks doing this job.The characters are all fun, likable and well-portrayed. The lines are good and the interaction appears genuine. The multitude of nationalities all ending up in the same place in the middle of nowhere adds an air of wanderlust and romance to the nitty-gritty work and environment.The current atmosphere regarding animal rights would never allow for this movie to be shown widely in America today. There would be a thick protective coating of PETA members surrounding any theater daring to try. They might have a point though, the way these animals are rounded up, confined and sent off to who knows where is enough to provoke uncertainty in the most cold-hearted of us.A long movie for sure, but it moves along quite well and few of the scenes seem unnecessary or out of place. Definitely worth a look if for nothing other than the animal scenes.

Director Howard Hawks re-teams with John Wayne, who heads a cast that also includes Hardy Kruger, Red Buttons, and Bruce Cabot, who play animal wranglers in Africa who capture wild animals(like Elephants, Lions, and the elusive Rhinos) for various zoos who are willing to pay for their exclusive services, in order to display these magnificent creatures in captivity. These men, when they aren't hunting, are fighting, drinking, and gambling, as well as pursuing women, which now includes a Swiss photographer who has just arrived to take pictures of the men, and their hunting, when she isn't taking care of baby elephants...Bloated film that was likely more fun to make than it is to watch, since animal lovers like myself will be less than enthralled by the capture of wild animals who should instead be protected in their environment! Though nicely filmed, even amiable to a point, it cannot overcome this inherent problem.

I really enjoyed this movie, so much so that I have watched it several times on DVD. As always for any movie my criteria is 'was I entertained?' and I was certainly entertained. Red Buttons as Pockets was a delight. In fact all the performances were very good. The humour was fun, the scenery was beautiful and the animal chases were exciting and the baby elephants were cute and Sonja was gorgeous. Aside from things like the changing water level when Kurt and Chips Jeep was stalled in the river and after several references to 15 pounds and one reference to a shilling, when Pockets was taking up a collection to buy some goats he asked for 2 dollars from each person, but most things were fine and Pocket's rocket was great. The one thing that really stuck out for me as being very wrong was when The Indian aka Little Wolf was gored by the rhino, Pockets said (I think this is what he said - it's not in the Closed Caption and I'm a little hard of hearing) 'this tourniquet isn't doing any good' and then on the radio Sean said The Indian was bleeding badly and they would be at the hospital in about 5 hours. If Pocket's statement and Sean's statement were both accurate The Indian would have bled to death long before the 5 hours was up, probably in the first hour! Once I got past that rather lethal goof I sat back and just had fun.